n. verse in the meter used in Greek and Latin poetry consisting of strophes of 4 tetrametric lines; reputedly invented by Alcaeus

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

Late Latin Alcaicus, of Alcaeus, from Greek Alkaïkos, from Alkaios, Alcaeus.

Examples

It may not, however, be without interest to some of your readers to know, that this elegant "Alcaic" was to be found at the Chartreuse not very long before the outbreak of that great political tempest, proof of which will be found in the following extract taken from the 9th volume of Malte-Brun's

 To reproduce an original Sapphic or Alcaic stanza in blank verse, or in the couplets of Pope, is at once to repel the reader who knows Horace well, and to give the reader who is unacquainted with Latin lyric poetry a totally erroneous conception of the metrical and rhythmical methods of the poet.

It would seem, however, that when Professor Conington insisted that an English measure once adopted for the Alcaic must be used for every ode in which Horace employed the stanza just named, he went far toward hampering the translator, who, despite his proneness to offend, has his rights.

Rhyme became by degrees an invariable or almost invariable accompaniment, and while quantity, strictly speaking, almost disappeared (some will have it that it quite disappeared from French), a syllabic uniformity more rigid than any which had prevailed, except in the case of lyric measures like the Alcaic, became the rule.

It may be true that Horace himself does not invariably suit his metre to his subject; the solemn Alcaic is used for a poem in dispraise of serious thought and praise of wine; the Asclepiad stanza in which Quintilius is lamented is employed to describe the loves of Maecenas and Licymnia.